June 2010 Issue

The 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll

Who can you believe? Americans say they tell their doctor the truth about everything—which makes you wonder if they’re telling the truth about anything. (And they trust Fox News.)

Click here](/magazine/2010/06/60-minutes-poll-201006.html?currentPage=2) to view the complete results, or to answer the questions yourself, visit the 60 Minutes homepage at CBSNews.com.

No one would call the United States a backward nation, but a backwards nation?—that’s another matter. At least for anyone looking over the results of our most recent poll, in which some of the answers seem to be, frankly, inside out.

Given the opportunity to jam other people’s cell-phone calls without detection, an appalling 72 percent claimed they never would; only 9 percent said they’d take daily advantage of what would seem to be a superb technological advance. We would have predicted the opposite: that three-quarters of the nation would embrace the possibilities of what amounts to a real-life mute button. But, apparently, no.

Similarly counter to our expectations, far more Americans yearn for the discovery of an unpublished Agatha Christie book (24 percent) than one by J. D. Salinger (10 percent). In other words, we must conclude that 4 published books from Salinger are considered plenty, whereas 80 or so from Christie are not enough.

The most trustworthy source of news? Never mind, oh, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal—held in esteem by just 8 percent and 7 percent, respectively. But what about The Daily Show, surely the gold standard? Nope: a mere 4 percent thought so. At the top of the heap are CNN (32 percent—fine) and Fox News (Fox News!), a close second with 29 percent.

Finally, it’s charmingly topsy-turvy that nearly 9 in 10 Americans claim they tell their doctors the absolute truth about everything&mdashalcohol consumption, sex life, medical history, and so on. Really? We’d venture that those proportions would be reversed if the question were “Do you always tell your pollster the full truth about everything?” Then again, how would we know for sure?

with the brakes and gas pedals in its cars. Will that make you MORE LIKELY TO BUY AMERICAN on your next car purchase?__
__ALL__
__REP.__
__DEM.__
__IND.__
__INCOME less than 50K__
__INCOME greater than 50K__
Yes
47%
49%
46%
48%
55%
34%
No
46
50
48
42
36
62